7 Positive Things

1. Focus on just today.
No one can control tomorrow. Try to only focus on what needs to be done Today.

2. Take time for you.
Everyone needs and deserves a break. We are better parents and people when we relax a little. It's amazing what even as little as 10 minutes of personal time can do for your outlook.

3. Think positive!!
Keep a small notebook and write down 5 things at the end of the day that you are grateful for. This one simple thing changes lives because it changes the way we view the world. You begin to view it with gratitude!

4. Choose your battles.
Decide what's really is important to acknowledge. The small stuff that worries us or stresses us out is not worth the energy we choose to put into it.

5. Hug those babies of yours and tell them you love them everyday. Kids are resilient and even when we make mistakes. They just want our love and will forgive.

6. Keep family and friends close.
Having a support system during deployment is critical. Join groups and reach out for help when you need it. Isolation will lead to depression. So many people want to help so be willing to reach out for the help. Their is great strength in numbers. We LOVE to help you!!

7. Laugh when you feel like crying. Lay down on the floor with the kids and each of you put your head on the others belly and start to laugh. It will be fake at first but soon there will be real laughter and you will feel much better. Laughter is not only the best medicine it's the best stress reliever too.

AmericanHeroHugs, are they just for Kids?

AmericanHeroHugs products although designed with children in mind are not just for kids. We often get orders for adults. Some people like to get two pillow cases, one with a picture of the HERO for the child and one with picture of the child to send to their HERO. Adults also love our HERO Jewelry. Often times we will make dogtags with pictures of children for the HERO to wear. HERO night lights although great in bedrooms, can be used to light dark hallways and bathrooms or anywhere you need a little extra light at night. It's important that we show pride in our HEROES and bring awareness to the children who also sacrifice for our freedom. The families left behind need our support. A great way to support our troops is to support their families

Why did you start American Hero Hugs?

"Why did you start AmericanHeroHugs?" This is a question that Tonya and I get asked a lot. The most important reason we started it was to find a way to honor our HEROES. When thinking about that, we discussed the most important thing to us and we both answered "Our children!" What better way to honor our HEROES than to also honor the people they love most, their children. We both agreed that we had to create something that helped foster a connection between the HERO and the CHILD when faced with long separations due to deployments. Using our combined talents we came up with AmericanHeroHugs. It started with a story told by a personal friend name Larry about his family's story of deployment and how a photo pillow gave them a connection. We have tried to put together products that will provide that connection. A child wearing a dog tag with their HEROES picture on it can open up the opportunity for someone to ask about their HERO giving them the opportunity to talk about them and feel connected. When a child gets into bed at night and sees their hero on their pillow case they can feel connected. We have geared all of our products to things a child can connect to and letting them have their HERO with them in some small way.

We operate AmericanHeroHugs out of our homes to keep operating costs low in order to keep our prices low. We know the financial burden long deployments puts on families. Do we want to make money? We would be lying if we said we didn't, but our intent when starting this was not to get rich but to use our talents to the best of our ability to provide a service to those who provide the ultimate service for us.

Working on adding new products

We are working on adding some new products to our AmericanHeroHugs store. Trying to bulid templates for puzzles, tote bags and clocks. We have two clock options that we are trying to build a good template for. The square offset one will work with most pictures. The round one is a little tricky and won't work with every picture.

We are thinking of adding 12, 30, 48 and 110 piece puzzles. They are really nice puzzles, all will have a high gloss except the 12 piece has a mat finish.

We will also be launching a HOMETOWN HEROES collection very soon.